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  • #2255172

    Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

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    by johnson.charles.c ·

    My current paramour is Ubuntu Linux. I have been with them since the Dapper Drake release. I have to say that I am a big fan and and becoming downright evangelistic about it.
    I wont take the point of bashing everything else out there to justify my own. I have used several variants along the path to now and have to say as time goes by I am both pleased and impressed with the efforts of all those clamoring to make their distro the king of the desktop.
    I first put Ubuntu on my Sony Vaio laptop and used it for about a day, before my girlfriend asked to borrow it for school. Like me she is a procrastinator, and had waited till the last min to ask. Meaning I didn’t have time to do the 4 hour reinstall of Windows-office-patches.
    Issues? Problems? This neonate user, this blissfully ignorant windows novice had none. Aside from telling Open Office to “Save as …”. She was able to use and navigate the Network, Internet, and file system with minimal questions and those relegated to simple howtos.
    Imagine my surprise when I find out she is now using it to manager her mp3 player, downloading files, and generally doing the things expected of a pc owner.
    So here’s the crux, could I have done this with another distro (excluding a windows answer)? Have we reached the point where Linux is “that good”? Or is this a case of a user with no expectations and therefore everything is a plus?
    For the past year she has used it and I am only aware of one real “problem”: the system wasn’t shutdown properly and had to run “fsck” in Maint-mode. Which was straight forward, as i just held down the “y” key. One problem? I would be out of a job here if that were the case…
    Thoughts?

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    • #2521004

      me too

      by jck ·

      In reply to Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

      I like *buntu distros.

      I’m debating on whether to wrestle with putting other distros on my other boxes…or just going to Kubuntu that I know works like a champ.

      I’m with you there man…Ubuntu and it’s cousins are all winners to me.

      • #2520987

        so obviously

        by dr dij ·

        In reply to me too

        it fixes problems with sound cards not working I see in discussions about Linux, since she was using it for mp3 player?

        • #2520809

          Try PCLinuxOS…

          by johnson12 ·

          In reply to so obviously

          PCLinuxOS, is really an easy one to use. It is KDE based but they have a Gnome version in the works. HW recognition is great, and it is really user friendly. It uses synaptic as an aptget front end, and the forums are really helpful.

          The current stable is .93 but 2007 should be final in a short time. I have been testing the rc’s and tr3 is as stable as most commercial distros. I can’t say enough good things about this one. I highly recommend it.

        • #2521242

          Furthermore

          by w2ktechman ·

          In reply to Try PCLinuxOS…

          I played with it a bit more for other things. PCLinuxOS is becoming more of a favorite of mine as well. However, I did not use Kubuntu very long so I cannot compare the 2 distros.

          An interesting thing that I found out yesterday. Beryl, which is not supposed to work properly on ATI cards, seems to be working well with PCLinuxOS. I accidentally clicked on it, the screen flashed for a moment, and then while moving windows around I noticed that it was functioning.
          I cannot say how stable it is right now, but I have not had any problems with it yet (including flipping to other desktops). Notes online suggest that with ATI cards, it either does not work, or works very slowly. Not in this case, it is just as fast as without it. And the best part, I did NOT have to edit driver files, etc..

          This post was posted using PCLinuxOS 2007 Beta3

      • #2622476

        Ubuntu’s Cool, I don’t know about Kubuntu 7.04

        by oktet ·

        In reply to me too

        I still have to figure out how to get the Kaffeine Player to play a regular encrypted DVD movie on Kubuntu 7.04, while Ubuntu is a simple update, and Totem starts to play DVD movies (encrypted and unencrypted).

        • #2622610

          Most Linux systems need extra codics to run

          by deadly ernest ·

          In reply to Ubuntu’s Cool, I don’t know about Kubuntu 7.04

          proprietary movies, this is due to the security laws etc as part of DRM and that lot.

          the Unbuntu web site should have some directions about how you get these codices – if not just check the Kaffeine web site, etc.

    • #2520797

      I think I’ve gone one better, I tried and like Ubuntu

      by deadly ernest ·

      In reply to Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

      except the Gnome desktop, tried to get Kubuntu to work, but it still relied heavily on the Gnome libraries. Once I removed all the Gnome libraries, much of the system wouldn’t work.

      I found two issues with Ubuntu I didn’t like:

      1. The password for the Superuser was the same as the general password,

      2. Some of the functions I often used in file and disk management were harder to get at and use.

      I tried SimplyMEPIS, and went out and bought SimplyMEPIS 6. It has all the advantages of Ubuntu, even uses some of the same repositories, but has a nicer (in my view) desktop, and slightly stronger security.

      I recently tried the latest Ubuntu release and went back to SimplyMEPIS 6, just a cleaner working environment for me. And a few friends who don’t know anything but Windows 98, have tried it and find it easy to switch over to,

      • #2520732

        gnome libraries

        by shryko ·

        In reply to I think I’ve gone one better, I tried and like Ubuntu

        it’s not the desktop itself which is relying on the gnome libraries in Kubuntu… it’s all the applications.

        I personally have found that Kubuntu Dapper was a great fit for drop-in replacement of Windows, and I see no reason why I should limit myself to just the KDE libraries… I personally prefer Firefox over Konqueror, so, I kept the GTK libraries around…

        they’re not *that* much extra space, and as far as drop in replacements go, Kubuntu is the winner as far as every distro I’ve tried…

        • #2521391

          I may be using the wrong terms, I’m not Linux Guru

          by deadly ernest ·

          In reply to gnome libraries

          But in both Ubuntu and SimplyMEPIS you can use Synaptic Package Manager (SPM), or an application called Add/Remove Programs (ARP).

          In ARP you have the choice to have it show you Gnome based applications or KDE based applications, it will even tell you if one is used by both or has shared libraries. I found with Kubuntu, some of the default loaded applications were Gnome based I used ARP to remove them, after making sure I had a suitable KDE replacement for anything I still wanted to be able to do. I also removed applications I don’t use. I do this as I have a slow dial up, and one of the options in SPM is to sort by status, so when it does a package update, it tells me only the updates for the stuff that’s installed. No need to download updates for things I don’t use.

          Anyway, using ARP I mark all the Gnome based applications for removal, it asks about shared stuff, which are then deselected. Once I ran ARP in Kubuntu, some things didn’t work so well. This left me feeling that Ubuntu is built as a Gnome system and Kubuntu has a KDE overlay on it, as some of the Gnome applications or libraries seem to be important to the core system. I trusted the programmer sof the applications to know what they were doing when they programmed it.

          SimplyMEPIS seems to be built as a KDE system from scratch. The main thing for me was the easier access for the file and disk utilities, and the tighter security.

          In the last few eeks, I tried the latest version of KDE from the Linux Format magazine, and couldn’t even get it to install and run properly. It had an issue with my 22″ wide monitor and my Nvidea 7600 series graphic card.

        • #2520159

          sometimes it’s better to stick with the distro’s repositories

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to I may be using the wrong terms, I’m not Linux Guru

          Mind you, the last time it really stung me was on a Red Hat box long ago. I had the RH distro install plus a bunch of roll-your-own compiles. These days I just stick to what the distrobutions package manager offers unless it’s something I really have to have and can run from my user or root’s ~/bin directory.

          I’d like to run the latest X.org or KDE release but I’ll stay away from them until they come in through my package mager’s updates.

        • #2520097

          I do use only the distributors repositories

          by deadly ernest ·

          In reply to sometimes it’s better to stick with the distro’s repositories

          I also try to remove from the system the packages for things I don’t use. no point in updating packages I don’t use, not on a slow rural dial up service, for the same reasons you mention re compatibility.

        • #2520048

          I feel your dialup pain

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to I do use only the distributors repositories

          I’ve been spoiled by cable access but I remember modem connections well. When I’m back home to my parents there are still friends outside of town without highspeed.

          If your working out of the repositories then I’m not sure what’s going on unless it’s a flaky package soon to be updated. Mandriva repositories have treated me well with only Skype and VMware being installed from third-party rpm packages.

          Nice to hear that other people go throug the pain of refining the system to only needed packages though.

        • #2532512

          Dial up pain – you don’t know the half of it

          by deadly ernest ·

          In reply to I feel your dialup pain

          I’ve been here three years, and only just getting over the grief – the last place I was at I had a 1024MB/512MB Broadband.

          Got here and the flaky line wouldn’t take data at all. A cable check, they swap some wires, and I can get dial-up. The exchange is so far away I can’t get DSL and the ISDN doesn’t work on the line – faulty and the Telco won’t fix. The exchange is microwave to microwave to microwave to fibre optic.

          When they did get me on-line, I was lucky to get 28.8 kbps. Two years and some hardware upgrades at the exchange later, and I can now average 36.6 kbps, and up to 44 kbps when none of the neighbours are making phone calls. They get on the line, I lose microwave bandwidth and the connection drops – aaaggghhh.

          From 1024/512 MB down to 28.8 to 44 kbps – dial up pain doesn’t even begin to describe it.

          Aggghhh I need a fix, I need a fix, where’s some broadband. I need a 1GB shot of download.

          edited to add a n’t I missed at the start.

        • #2520041

          AAHHHH…dial up!!!???

          by jmgarvin ·

          In reply to I do use only the distributors repositories

          Ya, that stinks. It irritates me that I have to setup a local yum repository in FC6 to have it check the CD first….

          Not everyone wants to use the mirrors for a large number of reasons…

        • #2532510

          Mirrors are very handy, especially with mirror smoke

          by deadly ernest ·

          In reply to AAHHHH…dial up!!!???

          Bill Gates and his mate Steve can tell you how handy they are; they use them a lot.

    • #2520793

      I need help using ubuntu

      by harshaniperera123 ·

      In reply to Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

      I am using ubuntu for few month i want to know how to install my modem and
      how can i connect to internet using dial up connection

      • #2520726

        Dial up modem and linux

        by viztor ·

        In reply to I need help using ubuntu

        I ran up against the modem problem in linux, but then we switched to a broadband connection.

        The problem is that you need a “linux compatible modem”, most are designed for Windows. If you google a bit you can see what people have said.

        If there is a local linux user group you can contact, they may be able to help.

        Here’s a page on setting up a dial-up modem:
        http://www.aboutdebian.com/modems.htm

        Check the USRobotics site:
        http://www.usr.com/

        If you can find someone to get the modem and set it up for you, that’s the easiest solution. If you have to install the modem yourself, make sure you can return it for a refund if it doesn’t work.

        Good luck!

        • #2521403

          He’s right (viztor)

          by johnson.charles.c ·

          In reply to Dial up modem and linux

          Most of the modems pushed out today incorporate some software specific to itself and windows.
          I can also recommend some of the older 56K modems with jumpered comm ports, allowing you to hardset your port/irq of choice. You can pick these up from friends or smaller pc shops for cheap.

        • #2521142

          Would using adapters with onboard DSP help?

          by jcitizen ·

          In reply to He’s right (viztor)

          I refuse to use any adapter without it; and I understand that most Linux distros adapt to them well because they use tried and true communication initiation methods.

          As was previously mentioned in another post – external modems commonly fit in this catagory, I believe. Although any software- based modem not written for Linux is probably a nonstarter anyway.

        • #2520311

          old hardware required

          by docotis ·

          In reply to Dial up modem and linux

          The common “winmodem” in PCI seldom will work. I found that older 3com / USR external modems are plug&play in all Linux distros. My Courier runs on a Redhat 8 and a Linspire system. I found the same for audio and video cards.One caveat, have the phone line hooked up before boot. Most distros will not install if there is no dial tone.Just another Linux frustration solved.

        • #2518449

          Hayes code?

          by jcitizen ·

          In reply to old hardware required

          I won’t use winmodems in Windows either; they are worthless! But as you said those models have been rock solid; and usually with on board DSP.

          A member named cls (I believe) from ZDNet told me that Linux communicates with the old Hayes communication code. Perhaps this is a factor?

        • #2520136

          Modems are fun

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to Dial up modem and linux

          Incase it helps.

          You should be fine with any “jumpered” or external box as long as it connects through a com port. The real issue with modems sarted with Winmodems and other “jumperless” modems.

          The specific issue is that without jumpers, you have to set the irq and port by software (fossil drivers for us old Dos folks). A jumpered modem lets you set the irq and port through hardware jumpers or dip settings so when the card goes into the machine it *is* 3F8,irq4 not a PnPray winmodem.

          For the same reason, an external modem connecting through a serial port on the motherboard should be fine because that serial port *is* 3F8,irq4 or whatever.

          Once the hardware was inplace I simply went into the X config manager and created a new internet connection (ppp or as per your ISP) pointing to the proper /dev for the modem (/dev/uao# I think?).

          It should work great as long as you don’t get stuffed with a PnP only modem.

      • #2521388

        Get help for Ubuntu here

        by howdougd ·

        In reply to I need help using ubuntu

        http://www.ubuntuforums.org/

        I’ve been using Ubuntu for about 14 months. I now have Dapper 6.06 LTS (Long Term Service) on two computers. I’ve had many questions but they have all been answered on the Ubuntu forums.

        I get free automatic updates to my applications two to three times per week which I may accept or refuse.

        There are over 18,000 packages, all self-installing, in the Ubuntu repositories all free for whatever you might want. I have over 1,500 installed.

        Desktops? Make them any way you want them. I didn’t keep any default desktops. On one computer I have five different desktops. On my main computer I use three desktops. All have different themes, colors, functions, logins. It’s all customizable. Make it how you like it.

        If I, an old man of 74 can make the change and love it, I know you young folks can do it if you wnat it. It’s entirely your call.

        Come visit at:
        http://www.imhdd.ms11.net/

    • #2520782

      Happy as a Clam

      by thumbknuckle ·

      In reply to Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

      I’ve been using Ubuntu for about three months, and I’m turning other people on to it, as well. At this point, it’s a question of whether to Ubuntu or Kubuntu. I like some of the options available with the latter.

      • #2521086

        Two Clams in one shell…..

        by fxef ·

        In reply to Happy as a Clam

        You can have both KDE and Gnome installed together and switch back and forth whenever you feel like it.

        Step by step instructions to install KDE on Ubuntu and have the best of both worlds.

        http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/kde

        FXEF

    • #2521397

      To be honest

      by xt john ·

      In reply to Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

      my experience is limited regarding recent releases of Ubuntu, but from what I remember, it is a great distrobution. As far as CD bootable versions of Linux go, I’ve had great luck with Knoppix. It’s found all the hardware I’ve tossed the disk into, laptops as well as desktops; sound, video, ethernet, etc. For setting up desktops and servers; Mandriva is still my personal favorite.

      • #2521383

        Ubuntu….

        by paul.hatton ·

        In reply to To be honest

        I’m also a convert. Been using Ubuntu for just over a month now. Tried a couple of distros, but found Ubuntu the easiest to install and it detected all of the hardware on my old P3 laptop, including a PCMCIA Wi-fi card which Kubuntu won’t. Must say that I prefer the KDE desktop, but have installed that using Synaptic with no problems. Any queries/not sure how to do this, the Ubuntu forums are a great place to find answers. I did start by using a dual boot option with XP, but haven’t booted to that for several weeks now.
        Now I’m looking forward to the next release in a couple of weeks time…..

        • #2521286

          Ubuntu convert

          by pohair ·

          In reply to Ubuntu….

          I’ve been using Ubuntu for about 6 months now. I like their policy of supporting an OS for 5 years, so I will stick with Dapper Drake (6.06) and not upgrade to Edgy Eft (6.10).

          I run Windows 2000 in a virtual machine under Vmware Server (a free download) for those applications for which I haven’t found a suitable linux replacement.

          If you want to run Vmware Server, search for the howto in the forums, and DO NOT update your kernel. Vmware Server is compiled with the kernel you are running when you install it, and updates to the kernel will break Vmware Server. Now if I could only tell the update manager to ignore kernel updates…

          As mentioned in previous posts, modems are the worst at linux compatibility, as they offload most of the modem duties to the CPU, meaning the driver (which doesn’t exist for linux, as they are proprietary) does most of the work. That’s why they have the nickname “winmodems”.

          I am very nearly Windows free.

        • #2521124

          vmware and kernel updates

          by Anonymous ·

          In reply to Ubuntu convert

          In my experience you can just re-run vmware-config.pl (that might not be the right file name, exactly, and I don’t have a system in from of me to verify, but it should be in /usr/bin, and definitely starts with vmware- and hase config or configure in it). It will go through the interview process again, but will have as defaults the answers you previously supplied.

          I haven’t use vmware-server much, but the above seemed to work okay for me.

        • #2520185

          Tried that

          by pohair ·

          In reply to vmware and kernel updates

          I’ve tried re-installing, and it worked the first few times. Then it failed, and i had to remove the whole mess (not easy when you don’t know where all the pieces are) and re-install. Of course, I couldn’t find my license, and had to send for another.

          Since the uninstall is difficult, I just decided not to install kernel updates until I have the time and inclination to fix the mess the updates cause.


          ohair

        • #2520160

          not a reinstall

          by Anonymous ·

          In reply to Tried that

          I may be misunderstanding you, but just in case I am not, I will clarify… It is not a reinstall just a re-config.

        • #2520129

          is there a .deb package?

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to not a reinstall

          The VMware rpm installs and uninstalls cleanly along with reconfiguring after install or on a whim.

          It sounds to me like they are working from a tar.gz and having to compile the source but in that case would there be a “make uninstall” they can use if they keep the original tar.gz files handy?

          If there’s a native package for Ubuntu/Debian then it shouldn’t be any more the checking or unchecking the box in add/remove program.

        • #2520132

          confirmed, rmware-config.pl should do it

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to vmware and kernel updates

          I’ve reinstalled VMware server a few times now for newer versions or different systems I’m working on. Each time it’s just needed root to run vmware-config.pl to reconfigure it’s settings. It should recompile anything it needs too for your kernel at that time. After that, the user is free to run and play.

          If it’s giving you too much grief, check the forums and see if you’ve found something new.

    • #2521290

      My one big grief with *buntu

      by Anonymous ·

      In reply to Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

      Is the potential security hole they have created with the primary user essentially being admin. (ie you can sudo everything, no elevated priv password required).

      If someone should obtain remote access to your primary user account, they basically own your system at that point. Doesn’t leave me feeling very warm and fuzzy.

      • #2521268

        agreed, and . . .

        by apotheon ·

        In reply to My one big grief with *buntu

        I agree, re: the security issue. There’s more I don’t like, though.

        For instance, the software dependencies enforced by the distro maintainers’ notions of what software they think you should want to use are pretty damned annoying. I’m also less than keen on some of the software stability issues I’ve seen (far better than MS Windows, but not as good as Debian up to a few months ago).

        Also . . . this isn’t so much a complaint as a lament: It’s difficult to feel happy with a distribution that offers so few software packages in its archives, in comparison with what Debian and FreeBSD offer. I guess I’m just used to software archives whose contents number in the five digits range.

        • #2520327

          Do you mean…?

          by absolutely ·

          In reply to agreed, and . . .

          ” I agree, re: the security issue. There’s more I don’t like, though.

          For instance, the software dependencies enforced by the distro maintainers’ notions of what software they think you should want to use are pretty damned annoying. I’m also less than keen on some of the software stability issues I’ve seen (far better than MS Windows, but not as good as [b]Debian up to a few months ago[/b]).”

          Do you mean that Debian has slipped recently, or just that you recently quit using Debian, because FreeBSD is even better?

          Thx,

        • #2520315

          it’s a sad day

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Do you mean…?

          I really hope it’s temporary, but I’ve been noticing a little less stability in the software I get from the Debian archives. In fact, earlier today I moved all my email archives and email access for my main account off a Debian machine and onto a FreeBSD machine because a recent software update seems to have killed my ability to mail to certain (important) mailing lists in some inscrutable manner. Similarly, I know someone whose Wine install has become broken due to a software update. There are occasional GPG key errors surfacing when interacting with the Debian software archives — not critical, but annoying. Finally, the archives seem to be getting overwhelmed by traffic during peak times of the day, which I had not encountered prior to the last few months.

          This seems to coincide with the accelerated release cycle for Debian recently, and I wonder if some things are being glossed over or otherwise less well tended in the software compatibility and stability testing. The GPG key authentication and update process definitely needs to be ironed out a little bit, and whatever’s causing the servers to respond more slowly during peak hours needs to be fixed up a bit — it may even be due to the new GPG key package authentication scheme used by APT.

          All of this adds up to Debian probably still being slightly more stable than Ubuntu, and years ahead of Gentoo on that score, but it may only be on par with Fedora these days.

          Based on my experience, all of these things (still) well eclipse the stability of the general MS Windows software ecosystem, but it’s still disappointing to see this take place with Debian.

      • #2521128

        Possible workaround?

        by Anonymous ·

        In reply to My one big grief with *buntu

        It occurs to me that I can probably ease my concern by simply creating an admin user as the primary user, and then create my primary user account after that.

        Still, it does leave you with more stuff in the base system than you may really want.

        But as far as ease, I think they have done a good job. I like their install method. A very good use of GUI to simplify the partitioning, time setting, etc… (though timezone and date/time dialogues could still be further consolidated). There device manager and other admin and prefernce tools are fairly well laid out and easy to use.

        Might be my lack of experiernce, but it does seem a little more difficult to keep application-current than, say, debian (which is still behinder in some cases than I want it to be, (that is one complaint I have with deb vs rpm vs… package management, and each distro having their own repositories for their particular packages – I can’t just go download OpenOffice and click ‘install’)).

        • #2520319

          software management compatibility testing

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Possible workaround?

          The reason you can’t just grab the newest version and click “install” is simply that the people including the new software in the main software archives for your distribution are ensuring that installing it won’t cause conflicts or instability in combination with other software in the archives, and that it won’t in fact simply prove unstable all by itself. You can always install from source (usually quite easy — just download the source into a directory of your choosing, [i]cd[/i] to that directory, and type [i]make; make install[/i]), but then you won’t have the same guarantees of stability, and your software management system won’t automatically provide access to updates for you any longer.

        • #2520137

          True

          by Anonymous ·

          In reply to software management compatibility testing

          It is a feature of the development model and the general Linux paradigm, I know. But I still find it troublesome nonethless, that I must either be behind a version or two (or three or…) or I must sacrifice automated updates and, potentially, stability. It seems if there were fewer choices in some areas (ie package management systems, GUI libraries…), useability and applications could advance more rapidly.

        • #2520117

          Consider this . . .

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to True

          If you were using MS Windows, you would face similar problems — either you’d be behind the bleeding edge, or you’d have stability issues (above and beyond what’s already normal for MS Windows). The difference is that with Linux-based OSes you tend to be more aware of them. This is not a situation unique to the Linux world.

          In fact, you might even consider the fact that the end-users are forced to be beta testers for all software on the MS Windows platform, in that they must take the chance of crashing the system and causing other issues any time they use a new piece of software. There has been no comprehensive testing as there generally is with Linux distribution software archives.

          Anyway, if you really want access to bleeding edge versions of software, you can add additional archives to your /etc/apt/sources.list file, such as the “unstable” and “experimental” archives, if you’re using Debian. Once you start getting into the “experimental” archives, you’re probably looking at delays of something like 24 hours from release of a brand-new version, at most. On the other hand, I’ve never been so insane as to require that sort of up-to-date software — those exist for people who want to be part of the community who test new versions of software for compatibility and stability before it ends up in other archives.

          “[i]It seems if there were fewer choices in some areas (ie package management systems, GUI libraries…), useability and applications could advance more rapidly.[/i]”
          I don’t see how that applies at all. Perhaps you could explain what you mean in a little more detail.

        • #2520108

          Think I understand his point

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to Consider this . . .

          “It seems if there were fewer choices in some areas (ie package management systems, GUI libraries…), useability and applications could advance more rapidly.”

          If I’m reading this right, too much choice means too many projects and too thinly spread developer resources. If there was one package manager for all Linux based OS then it would evolve very quickly and reduce confusion. Similarily, if there where three browsers instead of around fifty browser projects, it would evolve very quickly.

          I don’t agree with the point but if that is it then I understand it. There are areas I’d like to see simplified also but in general I am biases towards my hardware or functional needs so who am I to say what should be diversified and what should be standardised.

        • #2520080

          That would be true with closed source development.

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Think I understand his point

          “[i]If I’m reading this right, too much choice means too many projects and too thinly spread developer resources.[/i]”
          Open source projects can, in general, crib ideas from each other with impunity — and they can examine each others’ source code to see how things were accomplished. As a result, multiple projects going in different directions actually create fertile ground for innovation and for the rapid spread of ideas that have proved themselves worthwhile.

          Of course, some open source licenses are less compatible with this idea than others (I’m looking at you, GPL), but overall that’s how it works — better with more projects rather than fewer.

          edit: You mention the example of browsers. That’s actually a good one for me to comment on directly.

          I’m considering creating a new web browser, rather than jumping into development of a current browser. While Firefox has some characteristics that make it basically the only browser that is not so bad that I don’t want to use it at all, it is merely the least bad of an awful lot. None of the current browser projects I’ve seen are in any way suitable to guiding down a better path (toward something with the positive characteristics of Firefox, but without the incredible bloat and complexity of the code base, memory leak, and other issues that have arisen in that project). As such, a new browser seems to be the only solution to providing what I want and need out of a browser. If I find the time, I’ll create what I need.

          This will draw on the examples of many other already existing browsers for ideas, and it will benefit from the lessons of mistakes made elsewhere. It’ll also get a huge leg up over any attempts at a clean-room closed source browser implementation by leveraging a lot of already existing code (at the moment, I’m thinking I’ll probably use the Gecko rendering engine and Tamarin ECMAScript VM, same as Firefox). That’s a big chunk of the beauty of open source software development.

        • #2520050

          pretty close…

          by Anonymous ·

          In reply to Think I understand his point

          But I wouldn’t use browsers as an example. To me that is higher up the stack (ie application). I am really referring to lower level; GUI API/libs, package management and the like.

          Windows 3.1 actaully suffered some similar grief, as did 95 and 98 and even (though to a lesser extent 2000 and XP and probably even Vista, though it seems much less common. I think the phrase DLL-Hell sort of defined it. Different people would code to different shared libs or even different incompatble versions of the same shared lib. Much of that has been eliminated by either moving key elements of those APIs directly to the OS, or by developers moving their specific API components in with their application.

          Linux seems to have more difficulty in this area because first, you have a choice of several API’s (yes , they have achived great interoperabiity in at least the major ones from on DE to the next but…). And then you have rpm’s and deb’s and… scattered across the universe (you can even build your own if you want). Open office, for example provides an rpm of their latest release, right on their website, which the redhat crowd can (mostly, there are still potential dependency issues) install (yes, there is alien, but again, it adds another potential glitch-point to the install process).

          You make a point, windows has problems as well, but they don’t seem as obvious (well, except for right after the release of the new version, but often that is because the developers didn’t follow the ‘rules’) in large part due to the fact that there is only one core system, and therefore some limitations on the way you can do some things.

          That homogeneity has (IMHO)some great benefits, but ceratinly also major drawbacks (like me having to call MS/VALVE/ and beg for permission to run the program I just paid for and installed).

          The linux paradigm also has many pluses and a few minuses (of course there is the adage you can’t please everyone). But it just seems to me that somewhere between 1 choice and 1 million choices, there might be a nice, friendly, happy medium.

          Ok, I’ll shut up now.

        • #2532472

          a couple of happy mediums

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Think I understand his point

          Yes, this is a case where the proper pluralization is “mediums”, and not “media”.

          1. You could just set a sort of heuristic lower threshold on how much attention you’re willing to give to the choice of a given piece of software. Basically, as you consider what GUI environment to use (KDE, GNOME, XFCE, IceWM, Fluxbox, WindowMaker, Sawfish, Enlightenment, et cetera), you just look into them until you get tired of looking, then choose from among those you’ve already examined. If you later find out that there are some things that annoy you, you can revisit the issue.

          That’s really the practical way to handle it, and it’s pretty much what everyone does. Nobody (sane) actually examines critically every single window manager and self-proclaimed “desktop environment” in great depth, seeking out every obscure little side-project in the world, before making a decision. If you really [b]really[/b] don’t want to think about it, just pick a major distro and use the default. That’s usually the best option for someone brand spanking new to Linux. Eventually, you’ll start wanting something more specifically suited to your own proclivities, and at that point you’ll be grateful for the additional choices.

          If you’re at all like me, you’ll start branching out into other options, testing them against your preferences, quite quickly. Some people just stick to their first as their permanent favorite, however, and they’re welcome to it.

          I’ve found a happy sort of middle ground between ultimate configurability, truly lean and mean, and productivity enhancing. I’ve pretty much abandoned any pretense of “desktop environment” integration, however. That’s me. You don’t have to make the same choices.

          If you’re a rank newbie, I recommend you make as few choices as possible at first, but let your comfort level guide you. That’s really the trick that some habitual MS Windows users never quite grasp when they take their first steps into the land of open source software: they see that there are millions of choices, and they somehow think they [b]have to make a choice from all those options[/b]. They don’t. Go with whatever’s initially convenient, and don’t think about it too much.

          2. You could pick a smaller software ecosystem, to help narrow things down comfortably. For instance, if you just take Ubuntu as the Linux poster boy, as one choice, and add to that the three primary *BSD OSes (FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD), then you have a nice spread of options laid out before you. Compare them with one another, make a decision based on their relative merits, and go with a default desktop install. Voila, you’re in business.

          Then, as before (in the first idea for how to handle it), branch out into other options if and when you find that you’re curious and perhaps in search of something that more closely suits your personal proclivities.

          ########################

          I, personally, just kinda jumped in with a Linux distribution that was available and convenient. I bounced around through a few, finding things to like and dislike about each of them. Ultimately, I was introduced to Debian by some people I knew who figured I’d probably like it, and it turned out I really, really did. Once I got the hang of APT, I figured out that to really [b]really[/b] make things work best for me, I could just do a minimal install and use APT to build up from that to a fully functional desktop/workstation system that suited me exactly. This all happened before Ubuntu was even available.

          While I’ve played around with other distributions since then (including Ubuntu), I’ve never found another Linux distro that I liked more than Debian. It’s among the most stable, among the most secure by default, among the most easily managed via the standard toolsets, among the most standardized at its operational environment foundation, and the one operating system with the single most extensive software archives, period. In fact, the next-biggest official software archive for any major Linux distribution is less than one tenth the size.

          Then . . . I discovered FreeBSD. It’s more stable, more secure by default, just as easy to manage for a skilled sysadmin, more configurable, easier to configure in some surprising ways than any Linux distro I’ve ever touched (though plagued by the occasional counterintuitive default for “historical reasons”), and has damn near as much software in its archives as Debian. That is [b]very[/b] hard to beat.

          That may or may not provide you with some ideas of what others may find useful for their own progression through the free unix learning curve. I offer it in case it might help provide some idea of how one might more easily just go with the flow. Don’t think of this as something you have to get Exactly Right, Right Now; just take it a step at a time, and have fun with it.

          The choices aren’t all there because you have to make them all right this instant. They’re there because eventually, if you like what you’re getting yourself into, you’ll almost certainly want to explore them as you get comfortable with what you’ve already experienced.

      • #2520350

        Security

        by freebird54 ·

        In reply to My one big grief with *buntu

        Well – if they are sitting at your desk, in front of your computer – I think they ‘own’ it anyway… Default configuration also has all ports locked down – so remote login is a ‘remote’ possibility 🙂

        Of course, it is still Linux – so if you want to configure it otherwise (enable root, etc) then that is easy enough to do.

        Just a thought – in default state, you are still more secure than a Win box – you don’t even need a password for them…

        • #2520317

          It’s never that simple.

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Security

          There’s always concern for the security of the account you’re using to access the world at large on the other end of the big bad Internet. If you are (just hypothetically speaking) browsing the Web using Konqueror as the user account [b]foo[/b], and there happens to be a vulnerability in Konqueror this week that allows arbitrary remote code execution, you might end up with a trojan installed on your system.

          That trojan then might “phone home”, even bypassing stateful firewall rules such as “refuse connections that are not opened from the inside”. This may allow the person to gain access to your system as the [b]foo[/b] user. With this, the person can change the [b]foo[/b] user password, or brute-force crack it. Once that’s done, in default configuration on Ubuntu, all this hypothetical cracker needs to do is use the password he now has in his possession along with the [b]sudo[/b] command, and he owns your system. Otherwise, he’d then have to figure out how to crack the root user’s security to get full system access.

          This is known as a “privilege escalation vulnerability”, among other things, and it’s an example of what we who deal with IT security professionally also like to call “broken by design”.

          “[i]Of course, it is still Linux – so if you want to configure it otherwise (enable root, etc) then that is easy enough to do.

          Just a thought – in default state, you are still more secure than a Win box – you don’t even need a password for them…[/i]”

          This is all true. Still . . . I’d rather be more secure than less secure, in this case. While the issues with the Ubuntu default security model raised by its use of sudo are certainly easily fixed, and thus not much of a deterrent to me in and of itself, it strikes me as a bad idea for a default configuration since most users are not me. Most just use what they’re handed, and don’t really think about it.

          edit: Also, y’know, it looks a little like a sign of bad security design in general — and I don’t want to be caught by surprise by some other, more subtle problem with Ubuntu’s default security model.

        • #2520261

          Would you consider?

          by lastchip ·

          In reply to It’s never that simple.

          Would you consider writing a 101 (or similar) on how to change the default security in Ubuntu/Kubuntu?

          I, like many others, really like these distro’s, but the security issue does bother me and I would dearly like some “hand holding” in how to get this system back to the default Debian security way ie. a separate password for root and user.

          It did strike me, that once the system is installed, I could create another user (me) and give it a new password, then delete the original user, thereby creating two separate accounts. Is this over simplistic, or would root then disappear and leave me in trouble?

        • #2520113

          sure

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Would you consider?

          There’s more to it than that — you need to free up the root account to be able to have administrative access, and I believe you’d have to do that before you could delete the original user account as well. It has been a little while since I’ve done this, however, so I need to refresh my memory on the details.

          [b]EDIT: The following paragraphs have changed since I originally posted this.[/b]

          I’ll probably write an article for publication here at TR about the subject of administrative access security in Ubuntu, now that you mention it. In the meantime, I seem to recall that the procedure for creating a normally accessible root password is quite simple:

          [b]sudo passwd root[/b]

          Set a new password for the root user account, and voila, you have root access. Once you do that, just create an additional (nonprivileged) user account, and use that for everything other than administrative access. I have not tested this since recalling it today, however, and haven’t created a root password on Ubuntu in quite some time, so for the moment you’re on your own for the most part. Feel free to ask questions, but I make no guarantees until the next time I install an Ubuntu system and can be absolutely certain that I remember what I’m doing in this regard (which should be in the next week or so, especially if I’m going to write an article about it).

        • #2520044

          Thanks

          by lastchip ·

          In reply to sure

          for the prompt response.

          I’ll play it safe and wait until you’ve had the time to write the article.

        • #2532468

          It may be a couple months.

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Thanks

          I’ve got one article to finish now (actually, to basically rewrite/refactor), two more ideas for articles that I’m going to pitch to the editor because they recently occurred to me, and that one to pitch. Out of those four, it’ll be the last. Assuming all goes according to plan, it’ll probably be published in, say, about a month — there’s also the TR publication schedule to consider — but I do intend to get it done.

          If I feel really motivated to write it soon, I may move it to the top of the heap and do it next week (assuming the editor is receptive to the pitch — which he probably will be). Even so, it’ll likely be a couple weeks more before it gets published.

          In the meantime, if you want to research the matter yourself, a google search for:
          [b]ubuntu root password[/b]
          . . . should prove somewhat helpful.

          The fact you’re interested in such an article is making me more likely to write it sooner rather than later, though. I’m already itching to start making notes about how to structure the thing.

      • #2520329

        One of my main concerns as well

        by deadly ernest ·

        In reply to My one big grief with *buntu

        I also find SimplyMEPIS to be a cleaner operation

    • #2521280

      Ubuntu is simply excellent

      by jnhannah ·

      In reply to Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

      I had a very simlar experience with my wife. She has taken to Ubuntu very quickly. She likes the fact that Firefox is lightning fast, much faster than our Windows install, which used to be on the very same machine. She only really uses the machine to access the web, but if she can read her e-mail and print she is happy.

      I have used a number of different Linux distros over the years, including Mandrake and Suse. I always had a problem to either get the printer/scanner working in older distros. If it wasn’t the printer it was something else.

      I found Ubuntu installs very easily. And here’s the thing: Everything JUST works.

      I like the way that Ubuntu works. Whilst I am running the “desktop” verion of Edgy, I am actually running Apache, MySQl, PHP amongst other things.

      My latest achievement is to get MythTV working. For those of you who don’t know, MythTV is the Linux equivalent to the Windows Media center. It works very well indeed.

      I think that the Ubuntu team has brought out a distribution that can help ease the transition for users from Windows to Linux. In doing so, I think that Ubuntu has accomplished a major step. It has made it much easier for the general public to adopt Linux, and in some way to go head to head with Microsoft.

      I don’t work for Ubuntu, nor do I have any affiliation with Ubuntu. Whilst I have played with Linux distros, I have still kept using Windows XP. However, I have now made the full transition to Linux.

      Ubuntu has set the standard. You don’t need to know much about Linux to run it, but if you are a real Unix “geek” (I use this word in a positive sense), you can still “hack” to your heart’s content.

      • #2521100

        I agree.

        by lastchip ·

        In reply to Ubuntu is simply excellent

        Although I prefer Kubuntu, but that’s just personal choice.

        I’ve been using Edgy Eft 64 bit version now since it launched and have modified it slightly, so it is now a multi-media capable machine with the Beryl window manager. Yes, I know, it’s just eye candy, but it’s impressive as well.

        For example, I’ve been groaning on at work for a while now to anyone that would listen saying just how good modern Linux distro’s are, with the offer that anyone that would like to see it in operation could come home with me and have a look. Finally one of my friends (probably felt sorry for me!) asked to see it and I demonstrated it to him yesterday.

        To say he was blown away would be putting it mildly! He couldn’t believe how user friendly it was and how he could do all the things he did in XP without any effort at all. It’s highly likely he will now start to use it on one of his machines.

        People need to see Linux in operation. The problem is, all computer shops in the UK that supply new machines come pre-loaded with Windows and I suspect it’s much the same throughout the rest of the world. While that situation is a status-quo, Linux is going to remain a minority system.

    • #2521258

      no joy for me

      by j-braden ·

      In reply to Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

      I had a problem with screen blanking and also no support for core 2 duo. Went from DD6.06 to EE6.10. Still same problem (even with new drivers). Nice but I did not have the time to spend to get it right for me (and yes, I tried ubuntuforums.org).

    • #2521233

      My work has everyone using both ubuntu and windows

      by david.moffatt ·

      In reply to Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

      Hi all,

      At my work everyone is given both an XP and an ubuntu machine. We are a software development house so we have a lot of fanatical nut cases who refuse to do anything on windows. That is OK about 95% of the time. The mail client is weak. You have to jump through hoops once and a while. But it works.

      This is about as hard as switching from one version of windows to the next. In my experience most of the gotchas can be solved with Google and I have only had to download things which were not supported by default once or twice.

      The only bad experience that I have had is with the upgrades. Sometimes they overwrite my configuration files. Because I configure a lot of custom stuff this is a pain. The device support has been great. My dell PC and HP laptop worked perfectly. I even dual boot the laptop and I can mount the C: drive while running Linux. This is much better than the last distro I used which was red hat.

      In summary Ubuntu is great. It has sensible defaults and UI which are suitable for novices and it lets old hacks like myself do what we want directly via sudo.

      • #2521138

        In my opinion

        by w2ktechman ·

        In reply to My work has everyone using both ubuntu and windows

        it is a bit more difficult from moving between different versions of Windows. That may be because I do use the command line in Windows, and have very little a clue as to what the commands are in Linux.
        But between the different distros, it would be a good way to phrase it (at least the KDE ones that I have tried).
        I would more compare the learning of linux like learning windows for the first time.

        All in all, I would recommend the change to other people. A few stumbling blocks to get by and then the enjoyment of playing with it.

        • #2520105

          good cli reference

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to In my opinion

          I have trouble going the other way now, I keep hitting winR, dropping to cmd then getting “command not found” after typing “ls” twice in a row then remembering “dir”.

          search http://www.newfourge.com for “cli magic” for basic to advanced cli tricks.

          If all you need is a pure reference check the book store for “Linux in a Nutshell” published by O’Rielly.

          I had an article I believe called “five w’s of Linux” or something similar that talked about w, who, whoami, whatis, whereis and some other handy commands.

          The basics that translate from Windows:

          help = “man ls” or “ls –help”
          dir = ls
          cd = cd
          del = rm
          md = mkdir
          copy = cp
          move = mv

          I’d recommend opening a terminal and “man command” all of them.

    • #2521098

      Ubuntu = Easy

      by fxef ·

      In reply to Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

      I started my Linux experience with Red Hat 7.2 and have tried most all the other Live CDs, however I find Ubuntu to be the easiest yet.

      Ubuntu is for the new to Linux user. If you are a Linux power user Ubuntu may not suit your needs.

      Great for a disgusted Windows user too!

      FXEF

    • #2520357

      Gaming

      by vyper ·

      In reply to Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

      I have a question. I use my machine for flightsims notably Falcon4 aswell as other things. How good is a linux system at running Windows based programs such as Falcon4. Sorry if this is a dumb question but I know VERY little about Linux apart from what I have read, which isn’t a whole lot realy.

      • #2520330

        In many cases the games play better in Linux

        by deadly ernest ·

        In reply to Gaming

        some games are written with Linux versions, but the ones that aren’t usually work well in either:

        WINE – http://www.winehq.org – free
        CROSSOVER – http://www.codeweavers.com – purchase
        CEDEGA – http://www.transgaming.com – US$5 monthly fee for upgrades.

        And there are emulaters like VMWARE etc

        I’ve noticed quite a few games that play better in Linux than in Widnows – I’ve a few friends who play NeverWind Nights (I thinks that’s the name, they call it NWN) and they all swear the graphics is better and faster in Linux.

        • #2520314

          NWN and game performance

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to In many cases the games play better in Linux

          NWN is “Neverwinter Nights”. I haven’t played it, personally, but I know a little about it and have seen demos of it on Linux systems.

          There are some games for which you actually get better frame rates for graphics on Linux, and better stability. I know that in some cases it has been reported that a memory leak that affected a game on MS Windows did not affect Linux systems, probably in part because of the better memory management provided by the Linux kernel over MS Windows (which almost doesn’t manage memory at all so much as juggle it).

          You’ll likely have especially good luck with better graphics performance for games using OpenGL rather than DirectX, since MS Windows support for OpenGL has never been good, and the wise heads at Microsoft have decided that Vista won’t support OpenGL at all (fools) according to what I’ve read about it. I haven’t really looked into it in too much detail, though, so for all I know Vista may have an OpenGL patch coming soon to a huge friggin’ Windows Update download near you. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was an attempt to undo the damage to Microsoft’s reputation by MS Windows games that perform better on Linux, though — if they can get game designers to stop using OpenGL by wielding some monopoly power, they’ll knock Linux competition back a little bit.

        • #2520104

          NWN didn’t like me so much

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to NWN and game performance

          I’m back to the Windows boot for playing it. I look forward to testing it under an nVidia gpu though. It run like slog through my Radeon chip under Linux but I blame the hardware support for that.

        • #2520063

          distro, and NWN version

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to NWN didn’t like me so much

          There’s an actual Linux version of NWN — you don’t need to run it in Wine/Cedega. Were you using the Linux version, or trying to run the MS Windows version via Wine and/or Cedega?

          Also . . .

          I think the Linux version of NWN is only supported and tested on some very specific Linux distributions. It may not play well with all distros. Which distribution were you using?

          It’s also important to make sure you have the right drivers for your graphics adapter. Did you get the closed-source Linux drivers with 3D acceleration from the card vendor?

          I’m curious about the problems you’ve had. Even if I never play NWN, it’d still be nice to know what problems there might be with it.

        • #2520039

          Don’t forget to update SDL

          by jmgarvin ·

          In reply to distro, and NWN version

          It seems like a lot of distros are STILL shipping with SDL 1.1. It needs to be 1.2 or better for NWN to work properly.

        • #2532466

          interesting

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Don’t forget to update SDL

          I haven’t really been keeping up with the high-end graphics side of Linux at all, since my systems have primarily been pressed into service as development platforms and general-purpose workstations, rather than multimedia boxen. I didn’t realize SDL version played into NWN support, or that there was an issue with old versions of SDL still being standard on some distros.

          Thanks for the update, jmgarvin. I can always count on you to fill in the gaps in my knowledge, re: graphics and gaming on Linux, in these discussions.

        • #2532526

          I’d welcome the help

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to distro, and NWN version

          If I could get a clean running driver and play NWN native, it’d save me rebooting everytime friends want to linkup online. Not to mention clearup a bunch of video functions and solve a puzzle I’ve been tinkering with for a year now almost.

          GPU is an ATI AIW Radeon 9600 (or so) which supported xawtv until the driver project merged with X.org. I’ve not seen tuner playback since under Linux. 3D support is a new thing to muck with under Linux for me.

          Neverwinter Nights native Linux build installed with copy of required data files from ntfs partition. You unzip the tar.gz then copy the game data from your win32 install cd or drive.

          Mandriva2007 was the latest I’ve tried with using both the community Radeon driver and ATI blob driver. The Community driver supported Beryl nicely but ran the game slow. The ATI blob just seemed to generally run slow. Still no tuner chip support either as far as I can tell.

          I suspect my issues are graphics as the only issue the game presented was slow 3d graphics. The settings where jacked like I keep them in Windows; I could almost watch different effect being drawn.

          I’ve had some really good howto’s directed my way too but it still gives me grief. My next gpu is an nvidia with seporate tuner card but I still have this card for as long as I bang my head against the puzzle.

        • #2532464

          I don’t do a whole lot of gaming, et cetera . . .

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to I’d welcome the help

          I can number the games on which I’ve actually spent money on one hand. Ever. Considering my age, that’s not very bloody much.

          I’m only just now about to modify a system to create a FreeBSD workstation with high-end graphics capabilities — and it’ll dual-boot Linux for gaming. Once I get all the current data transferred off it to another machine, I’ll wipe that sucker, stick an nVidia card into it, and get to work on it. Until now, I’ve been doing all my online gaming on the Windows side of someone else’s dual-booting Debian/WinXP laptop.

          So . . . while I’ve picked up a lot of information on Linux gaming from people I know and from my own investigations in preparation for the upcoming creation of a Linux gaming system (dual-booting FreeBSD, of course), I’m not the most knowledgeable person at TR about the subject. I recommend you hang around [b]jmgarvin[/b] a bit if you want to know more, though of course I’ll provide what help I can.

        • #2519443

          cheers

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to I’d welcome the help

          he does seem to be the more knowledgable on *nix game support in this conversation. It’s about time I have another go at it though. Everytime I reinstall Linux, I learn a bunch of new stuff; games can’t be any different, eventually I’ll reinstall the game components enough to get them working.

          JMGarvin, any tips on tweaking an ATI AIW Radeon 9600 under Linux? I’m lacking support for the onboard tuner chip and have yet to be able to really tune the graphic drivers.

          My next video setup is definately going to be nVidia GPU beside a Hauppauge tuner board. After that, I’ll see if I can get all boards to fit on the mobo alongside a second nVidia SLI. Maybe I got back to ATI the generation after that if AMD can turn itself around and fix ATI’s version of supporting Linux.

        • #2519327

          Feel free to chip in here, jmgarvin.

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to I’d welcome the help

          By the way, last night I helped someone get World of Warcraft running in Wine (on a Thinkpad, using ATI Radeon graphics, running Debian) — [b]without[/b] Cedega. Unfortunately, there’s a problem: it doesn’t allow typing in the login screen, so she can’t log in. Cedega may be the way to go after all, if we can’t figure this detail out.

        • #2518212

          Get the older ATI drivers

          by jmgarvin ·

          In reply to I’d welcome the help

          I know it seems silly, but the 9600 is pretty flaky in Linux anyway.

          Also make sure to run glxgears (just type glxgears at the command line)

          You should be over 1,000 fps or either you don’t have 3d support enabled OR the driver isn’t working properly.

          With ATI, I’m going to say: The driver isn’t working properly. This could be due to a couple of things:
          1) Did you remove the community driver before you installed the ATI driver?
          2) After you installed the ATI driver did you comment out DRI in the xorg.conf? (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) If you didn’t just edit the xorg.conf and put a # infront of DRI.

          Other than that, sometimes uninstalling and reinstalling the ATI driver works as well.

          If you still have the Mesa drivers running, you don’t have 3d support.

        • #2518181

          re: glxgears

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to I’d welcome the help

          Depending on your setup, glxgears may not provide any frame rate information. You may have to use fgl_glxgears instead. Whoever thought it was a good idea to make glxgears not provide any diagnostic information must have a hole in his/her head.

        • #2518164

          Ah yes…

          by jmgarvin ·

          In reply to I’d welcome the help

          I forgot about that. Oh, and it helps to update your SDL stuff as well (for the native games).

        • #2519984

          my own issues

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to I’d welcome the help

          That WoW install I was talking about:

          Fixing the “can’t type in username and password” thing I mentioned was an absurdly easy fix. We just gave control of the game window to the window manager using winecfg. Unfortunately, now the compass/minimap is broken while indoors — it’s just blank white. There’s some stuff online that suggests we should be able to fix it by using Wine versions greater than 0.9.28, but APT is being kind of weird about it and won’t let us specify a version that new in the /etc/apt/preferences file. If we try to do so, it just gives us an error about the wine package not existing, and being replaced with libwine (which isn’t strictly true).

          Frame rates are better on the Linux side of that laptop than on the MS Windows side. Just don’t have Firefox running, or you’ll experience severe, increasing lag in high-traffic areas until the system locks up or crashes. It must be that memory leak whose existence the Mozilla folks deny.

        • #2520652

          Be prepared for wonky patching with Wine

          by jmgarvin ·

          In reply to I’d welcome the help

          I’ve found that wine and the WoW patcher don’t get along very well. Typically, I have to download and install the patch manually.

        • #2520538

          thanks, jmgarvin

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to I’d welcome the help

          That’s good to know.

          Now if only I could figure out what’s going on with the compass/minimap. . . .

        • #2520433

          I only have two guesses with this one

          by jmgarvin ·

          In reply to I’d welcome the help

          1) ATI drivers do cause this. However, as I understand it, if you update the drivers it does fix it.

          2) Use OpenGL mode.

          Also, Cedega requires something called Moz Control which apparently has to do with ActiveX and if it isn’t installed then some bugs (like the minimap bug) can happen with certain video cards.

        • #2622603

          Graphics are Better and Faster in Linux

          by don ticulate ·

          In reply to In many cases the games play better in Linux

          You here things like this all the time but are they actually better & faster?

          I guess we would need a rig test to find out – could be true, could be false!

        • #2620741

          I don’t claim to know what it’s like for all games . . .

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Graphics are Better and Faster in Linux

          I can tell you that, at minimum, World of Warcraft is less laggy, and produces fewer graphics artifacts (read as “glitches”) on the same machine in Debian GNU/Linux than in MS Windows. Since that’s the only computer game I play these days, that’s quite good enough for me.

        • #2620677

          Any…

          by don ticulate ·

          In reply to I don’t claim to know what it’s like for all games . . .

          Core or Memory overclocking on the card?

        • #2620552

          nope

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Any…

          Laptop, minimal install with software installed as it’s needed. Nothing special.

    • #2520052

      Linux Mint?

      by boxfiddler ·

      In reply to Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

      Is anyone familiar with, or has anyone tried Linux Mint? My understanding via some reading about it is that it is amazingly easy to install, finds nearly all hardware, installs a variety of proprietary codecs, and is a derivative of Ubuntu in some way.

      I’m hunting thoughts and opinions re: all of the above along with tales of experience with this distro.

      Thanks!

      • #2532511

        Linux Mint – isn’t that the one that’s 95% caffeine

        by deadly ernest ·

        In reply to Linux Mint?

        designed to keep dedicated hard core Linux computer gurus awake towards the end of a last minute coding frenzy making the deadline on a new kernel?

        I’m sure it is, even comes in a nice white box with Tux on the cover. Back in 2000 I was doing a tech college course and one of the other students brought a tin of it to a Unix class. Man were they hot, and they did keep us awake.

      • #2532460

        at a glance

        by apotheon ·

        In reply to Linux Mint?

        It looks like it’s simply an easy-to-use desktop, as long as you like the defaults. It strikes me as something akin to the XP Home of the Linux world — pretty, relatively simple, and not really designed for monkeying around with the innards at all or doing anything nonstandard. It may be the “perfect” desktop Linux for Mom.

        If you’re not a developer or a Linux gamer, this might be up your alley.

        Then again, that’s just from looking at the website. My impression might be completely unrepresentative of the actual Linux Mint experience, since I’ve never personally used it, nor am I aware of anyone I know that has used it.

        It appears to be a modified install of Ubuntu, in essence — not a wholly new distribution with separate archives. In fact, it seems to use the Ubuntu archives for most of its software management, whereas Ubuntu (a Debian derivative) uses wholly separate archives from those of Debian itself, and in fact mixing in Debian archives can cause software conflicts for Ubuntu (and, thus, for Linux Mint as well).

        The long and the short of it is that Mint looks like a slight modification of Ubuntu, using all the same software archives as Ubuntu, but with a few extra GUI utilities thrown in to make your life easier.

        • #2532450

          mixing archives…

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to at a glance

          Thank you Apotheon, for the handy-dandy tidbit there about mixing archives. More than likely I would have found this out the hard way with my current experiment (which has been somewhat of a nightmare here and there as it is). Of course the nightmare was of my own choosing! I wanted something slightly more difficult than the easiest for the newbie (so I’m masochistic).

          I also appreciate your earlier post re: choose a distro, load the minimal defaults, find your way around, get comfy and then move to another if you don’t like what you’ve got (badly paraphrased on my part). It is, frankly, the manner in which we learn Windows – why shouldn’t the same learning process apply to Linux?

          As things have improved somewhat with FC6 – and thanks to jmgarvin while I’m at it – I will be hanging with it for awhile.

        • #2532322

          good

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to mixing archives…

          I’m glad I’ve been of some help, and I wish you the best of luck in your computing experience, wherever it leads. Of course, I have some opinions about where people’s computing experiences should lead, but that’s another tale for another time.

        • #2520543

          Curiosity killing the cat aside…

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to good

          I can’t stand it any longer! Where do you think people’s computing experience should lead?

        • #2520537

          a good destination

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Curiosity killing the cat aside…

          I’m of the opinion that stable, architecturally secure, open source OSes that don’t use licenses with ridiculous restrictions like the GPL are the best place for one’s computing experience to lead. I’m moving along that path myself — I’m using FreeBSD, which satisfies those criteria pretty well (though a few tenacious bits of GPLed code still cling to me, like GCC).

        • #2519436

          nah.. if you where masochistic; Gentoo

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to mixing archives…

          heck, I haven’t even tried a Gentoo install yet and I’ve been banging my head against the pengin’s bad moods for years now.

        • #2519323

          what I used to say about Gentoo

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to nah.. if you where masochistic; Gentoo

          There was a time when, every time someone suggested I give Gentoo a try, I said “If I wanted to use Gentoo, I’d install FreeBSD.”

          The idea behind that, of course, was that if I wanted to use a ports-based software management system to install from source rather than using packages to install binaries, I’d rather use the more stable FreeBSD than Gentoo of the “that program’s broken this week” joke.

        • #2518163

          But, Gentoo will get better with the next release

          by jmgarvin ·

          In reply to what I used to say about Gentoo

          Bah…I keep hearing about how Gentoo will get better with the next one, but every time, it’s the same thing.

          I want to like Gentoo, I REALLY do…It’s concept is awesome, but the exectution, not so much.

        • #2519983

          eh . . .

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to But, Gentoo will get better with the next release

          Its concept may be neat, but it’s not very original. It’s just a rip-off and slight extension of the concept of the *BSD OSes’ ports tree software management. Considering I don’t want an OS install and initial configuration to take four days, I’d rather do the initial install using a *BSD base system and replace whatever I like using portsnap if I want it compiled from source rather than installed via binary.

          . . . especially considering the far greater stability of something like FreeBSD.

        • #2519874

          Gentoo had me interested too for a while

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to But, Gentoo will get better with the next release

          – Software compiled for only the hardware you have and running as efficient as that sounds.

          – Watching my system compile for two days is actually a draw for me.

          – Running a harder gauntlet than other distorbutions would mean learning pleanty about my machine I’ve not yet learned in passing.

          I still haven’t had a go at it though. Rumour is that Debian currently has the best hardware support and freakishly large repositories. Then I read that the Gentoo project is haveing more internal politics and squables between developers.

          Perhaps this is how people that haven’t looked at Linux feel; interested but turned away by the group dynamics.

          Good point though. If you want a beast of an OS and just gotta see something compile; FreeBSD. The last time I looked at it, apps where installed by digging down a folder tree of possible programs then typing “make” in the program named folder after which BSD would download all required source and libraries then build the app you wanted.

        • #2519846

          re: FreeBSD

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to But, Gentoo will get better with the next release

          Yeah, that’s pretty much how it’s usually done. You use the “whereis” command to find the program you want (if you’re looking for something specific), or from the /usr/ports directory the “make search” command to find something that matches specific search term criteria. Then, you use the “make install clean” command for the directory specific to the software you want to install.

          You can also install binary packages with even simpler commands.

          You can also install tools that make it even more brainless to install either from ports (source) or packages (binaries), as you desire.

          FreeBSD is much better at source installs than Debian (in fact, FreeBSD is designed with the assumption that compiling from source in the ports tree is the default), and is as good at binary package management. It’s not only more stable than Gentoo — it’s more stable than Debian.

          I should shut up now. I really like FreeBSD, and could probably go on for hours.

        • #2520665

          I think it’s time I cut a BSD VM

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to But, Gentoo will get better with the next release

          I came to Linux originally for more OS to consume not to escape a brand name so I’m always interested to hear comments on other systems. If this comment series was not so long, I’d say; Continue on for hours.

        • #2520535

          re: continuing for hours

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to But, Gentoo will get better with the next release

          I’ll probably be posting about the joys of FreeBSD at [url=http://sob.apotheon.org][b]SOB[/b][/url] in the next few days. You may find it worthwhile to check that out when I get around to it, if you’re really interested.

      • #2514376

        Linux Mint User Experioence

        by all_mighty_dollar ·

        In reply to Linux Mint?

        I’ve used Linus Mint now for 2 months & have had a very good user experience with it as a desktop OS, esp for an old Windows user concerned about secutity issues.

        Compares equal to/someways better to MEPIS 3.1.? & 6.? versions and PCLinuxOS IMO.

        Since I’m a user it isn’t in my interest trying a lot of tweaks or attempting to load additonal/’slicker’ drivers etc.

        Started with SUSE 9.0 usage on a daily basis & am still using it on another machine but find it’s ‘commerical’ adaption less dynamic but also the most stable.

        All machines have been dual boot machines but I’m finding I don’t need windows much anymore. The dual boot installs were easy and fast, like 20 minutes for a complete OS and applications install. The drives I had did have plenty of space not being used by windows.

        Interestingly, my ‘best’ learning resulted from using/experimenting with a Knoppix LiveCD that was given to me after I started with SUSE.

        • #2514368

          Thank you!

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to Linux Mint User Experioence

          If it’s not prying too much, how old are the machines you are running Mint on? My experiment with Linux is taking place on an old HP laptop. I want to play around with it and Linux until it bites the dust. So I guess I’m most curious about potential install/hardware issues as those are proving interesting, due in some part to the age of this laptop (8 yrs).

        • #2519420

          an old laptop example

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to Thank you!

          My primary (and dearly in need of an upgrade) laptop around the house is a Panasonic Toughbook 27. Check Panasonic.com/toughbook for specs though it may take some digging.

          Memory is below 128 meg (need to put more ram in until it retires) which limits what I can do. A few programs open at a time runs fine but my normal desktop workload of seven to ten user applications would kill the notebook.

          CPU is a pentium around the 300mhz range (0.3Ghz for the younger kids). There’s no upgrading it so that’ my limit.

          Sound was autodetected by Mandriva, Knoppix and Ubuntu though liveCD like Knoppix eat alot of memory causing chunky sound hickups. Mandriva native install runs sound clean though.

          Graphics also detected flawlessly. My only complain there is that I’ve yet to find any way ot activating the CF27’s touchscreen (works adictively under Windows).

          PCMCIA wired nick pickup ok but I’m using old nic so that’s to be expected (ah.. Tulip.. my old friend).

          PCMCIA wireless nick functions once the Windows driver is installed through ndiswrapper. I say “functions” because it connects to the wifi router but doesn’t provide complete and native hardware support. That’s an issue with Broadcom not having the decency to release proper specs for the their chip running in Linksys 54gs nics however.

          My biggest source of grief continues to be power management. Any time the lid is closed or the machine left idle for too long, it locks up because Linux continues to have trouble with Sleep and Hybernate modes. If there’s a solution out there, I’ve yet to stumble across it though I keep looking. Currently, my solution is to reboot the machine, leave music playing or be on it constantly; I leave it to play music most of the time.

          Notes about performance hits
          – I’m running my normal install of Mandriva with pleanty of background apps.
          – I’m using KDE where I should be using XFCE (maybe Backstep)

          Notes about performance gains
          – I use SSH to work on and run apps from my primary desktop when I can. This limits the load on my notebook’s hardware since the remote app uses remote resources other than forwarding the screen GUI display calls to the local X session.

          Other than freezing at sleep/hibernate and forcing me to use the mouse pad instead of touchscreen, Mandriva is running just fine on a pent 300 mhz with < 128 meg ram.

        • #2519392

          Good to know

          by w2ktechman ·

          In reply to an old laptop example

          I doubt that I will be installing it on anything that limiting, but it is good to know, as I may install it on a few 800Mhz systems with 128 RAM.

        • #2519386

          Thanks!

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to an old laptop example

          Believe me, I appreciate all the info you folks are willing to dish out!

        • #2519311

          another example

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to an old laptop example

          I’ve had two pre-2000 Thinkpads with Debian installed on them in the last three or four years. Both of them worked flawlessly until a hardware failure (in one case, the electronics were fried by a friend, and in the other, the screen went out — though I’m using it as sort of a low-rent fileserver and email application server for now).

          I don’t remember the older of the two very well, but the last of them is a Thinkpad 600E, with a 366MHz Pentium 2 with 128MB of RAM. It runs like a champ, having accomplished a minimal (CLI-only) install of Debian on it then built my user environment one package at a time via APT. The install and initial system config probably took me a grand total of between forty-five minutes and an hour and fifteen minutes, including the X Window System, the WindowMaker window manager, Firefox, and all the trimmings. By installing in that manner, I ensured a lean, mean computing machine, rather than the bloated, monstrous install one normally gets with default desktop installs.

          I regularly ran that thing with a dozen or so applications running at once (though, to be fair, I specifically chose lightweight applications for most of them, like console-based Vim rather than GUI editors like OpenOffice.org Writer for basic text editing tasks). No problem. I never bothered to install Flash on it (which cut down on the amount of ad content I saw on the web about 90%).

          Wireless via a Broadcom chipset PCMCIA card was generally flawless, using ndiswrapper. Word is, Linux kernels 2.6.18 and later support Broadcom natively via open source drivers, so you shouldn’t need ndiswrapper for Broadcom chipset wireless adapters on newer installs — I ran into a minor issue with kernel installs on this laptop, so I stuck with the MS Windows driver via ndiswrapper.

          Sleep modes worked well, but they required a little tweaking to get operational — both suspend to RAM and suspend to disk. I don’t really remember the difference between “sleep” and “hibernate” modes, off the top of my head, so you’ll have to figure out what I’m talking about from my descriptions. In both the RAM and disk suspension modes, a short command could be issued at the command line that would suspend current system state, saving it to either RAM or disk. I’d close the lid, carry my laptop wherever I needed to be, then open it up again. Voila — it would come up exactly as I’d left it. I don’t recall whether I had to hit the Shift key to wake it up, or anything like that. I also did this on the older of the two laptops — not on the newer — so I don’t exactly remember how I accomplished this feat. Look up “suspend to RAM” or “suspend to disk” on Google, maybe.

          This thing kicked butt so well that it actually served as my primary development, general productivity, and web browsing system for a couple of years.

        • #2517880

          Sleep and Hibernate

          by w2ktechman ·

          In reply to another example

          I usually tell it to do nothing when closing the lid (Windows) because of sleep/hibernate issues.
          Sleep — saves system state to memory unless memory is full, then it stores part on the hdd. The hdd is still active (powered) unless an option to turn off the hdd’s is present.

          Hibernate — records everything to HDD and adds a new boot sector to go right into where you left your current session. It powers everything off so it is better for battery life.

          The problems usually arise with changing the docked state. If you suspend, sleep, or hibernate (especially hibernate) and then dock or undock the notebook, you may have problems with it. In Windows it can BSOD, I havent tried in Linux, but I would suspect it to freeze.

        • #2519980

          ahh . . .

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Sleep and Hibernate

          So, basically, suspend to RAM is sleep, and suspend to HDD is hibernate. Gotcha. It seems like I can never remember which is which. I’ll make more of an effort to recall this time.

          I had some minor issues with moving to and from a docking station with Debian on a Thinkpad at one point. I don’t recall how I solved the problem, but I know that I did solve it. I think the only problem that I had was related to screen resolution, though.

        • #2519866

          Remembering Sleep and Hibernate

          by deadly ernest ·

          In reply to Sleep and Hibernate

          S=S – Sleep is soft storage of the information, software record in the RAM.

          H=H – Hibernate is hard storage of the information on the hardware, hard drive.

          Just match the letter to the storage type.

        • #2538199

          Interesting way to remember it

          by w2ktechman ·

          In reply to Sleep and Hibernate

          Thanks,

          Now what about Suspend Vs. Sleep???
          And, what about Turning off the HDD vs suspend and sleep???

        • #2538163

          In answer to w2ktechman’s last question

          by deadly ernest ·

          In reply to Sleep and Hibernate

          aaarrrggghh – enough already :p

          The best way to hibernate any computer is with a twelve gauge shotgun and number four shot at close range, served hot and on target. This also serves to cool it down well with ultra heavy ventilation, solves all those hot battery problems too.

        • #2519871

          I’ll check out the suspend info

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to another example

          Sleep reduces resource use but keeps everything alive in memory. Drives spin down, screen shuts off and the machine keeps on with only what it needs to wake for events.

          Hibernate stores the active session (including form field values I believe) to the drive and powers down the machine. The bootup is basically reading the swapped info and restoring the session where it left of instead of running a complete cold boot to a clean desktop.

          That’s really all I can think of to cause my freezing grief; time idle or close lid and it’s boned till reboot. I even disabled all power saver features in the BIOS and went so far as to remove acpi and anything that smelled like power management but I’ve obviously missed some setting since it continues. The battery is long since rotted out so there’s no need for powermanagement on wall plug; if I’m not using it, it’s not on. Time for me a google to have another go at it though.

          I hear tell that Thinkpads are currently the best supported notbook for Linux distros. If I can’t upgrade to another rugged notebook I’d go thinkpad at at least get teh business class quality hardware or alien and go gaming monster.

          Once you read email in a downpour.. non-rugged just feels wrong.

          As for the broadcom issue, I’ll be happy to try it when the kernel update hit’s my distro, if only to remove a layer or code around the NIC.

          My build method is basically the same:
          – go through install to partitioning, cut three partitions at least (/ /var /home) plus a swap.
          – continue to package selection and deselect everything then check basic cli and config utilities and “choose indavidual packages” followed by selecting Joe editor and rpmdrake (allowing the minimum required X packages to be autoselected).
          – after initial boot, I go into X with twm or whatever basic manager is included and do my real system package selection in small chunks so I don’t get stopped by a flaky network half way through download.

          I still can’t shake the need for a GUI listing of packages but the next step will be installing a cli only system as a puzzle. I’m also going to do a quick cli only LAMP install in a VM with only what the LAMP stack needs to function. More puttering about with puzzles means more happy learning.

        • #2519844

          re: CLI

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to I’ll check out the suspend info

          I mostly use my GUI environment as a place to store terminal emulators. I do like using Conky for displaying system data on the desktop, and I use Firefox (and, these days, GAIM) as well, though. My development work, writing, and so on, all basically take place in terminal emulators, with tools like Vim, irb, the OCaml toplevel, the shell itslef, and so on.

          All of my software management — APT on Debian and the ports tree on FreeBSD — is done via terminal emulators, of course.

        • #2520659

          I gotta get a Howto Program in *nix for dummies

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to I’ll check out the suspend info

          I’ve been coding since highschool put Turing infront of me;you know there’s a line limit to how much the Turing editor will let you write? After that you have to use a text editor and the stand alone compiler.

          Growing up on Windows machines and only being exposed to VB and C++ through Ms Dev Studio in school is a bit fo a hinderance. If it’s not a graphic EDI layed out in MS like fashion, I’ve got learning to do. Create program form, add code behind each element; stupid easy.

          Eclipse doesn’t want to insall on my Mandriva. Everything downloads then I get some stupid package error half way through install. Far as I can tell, it’s a JAVA EDI though with plugins to support other langauges.

          Kdevelop installed clean with a few dependancy substitutions so I’ll see if I can figure out how to make that go without buying a book.

          Either of these is still limiting me to a hand holding EDI and pretty form creation tool to write code behind. I’d just open a text editor and “cc blah -o blah.exe” but I need some practice before I go back to writting form generating code without.

          Actually, any recommendations on where to start with FOSS programming?

        • #2520531

          what I find useful and easy

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to I’ll check out the suspend info

          Actually, if you want to get into FLOSS programming and don’t mind pretty much pretending you’re a complete newbie to programming (which, in some respects, you are if you’re only familiar with Visual C++ and Visual Basic, or something like that), I have a few ideas:

          1. You can get started with programming quite easily, via a plain old text editor and the command line, by picking up a copy of the O’Reilly book [i]Learning Perl[/i], also known as the “Llama Book” because of the llama on the cover. Once you’re done with the llama, you can pick up a copy of the alpaca, aka [i]Intermediate Perl[/i]. With [i]Learning Perl[/i], if you have the luxury, you may want to have a look at both the second edition and the fourth edition, and choose the one that you think will serve you best. In either case, sign up for a membership at [url=http://perlmonks.org][b]PerlMonks[/b][/url]. It’ll be your best friend for Perl programming resources online.

          2. You can also get started quite easily with a text editor, the command line, and an interactive programming shell (aka REPL: read eval print loop) called irb, via the language Ruby. This is better if you want more object-oriented programming, whereas Perl is better for more unixy system administration type stuff. Both are excellent for system administration and web development, and can be used for a number of other purposes with great success as well. Both have their strengths and weaknesses (mostly strengths, though). Someone bought me a copy of [i]Everyday Scripting with Ruby[/i] for my birthday this year, and it should be arriving today or tomorrow — but I’ve already paged through it extensively at Barnes and Noble, and it looks like a beautiful, wonderful way to get introduced to programming with Ruby.

          3. You could learn UCBLogo via the university level computer science textbooks — available both as hardcopy books you can buy and as free online resources — [url=http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/v1-toc2.html][b]Computer Science Logo Style[/b][/url]. These are incredible books, and they get you used to programming via text file scripts and use of a REPL, working in an open source environment (though it’s mostly working alone, of course, being textbooks), and provide the added benefit of giving you a good grounding in some important fundamentals of computer science. All of it is using a high-power open source implementation of the Logo language (don’t think it’s just a “toy language” because of the turtle — UCBLogo is a real Lisp dialect, using m-expression syntax as God, McCarthy, and Russell intended rather than the s-expression syntax that is used for all the popular Lisp and Scheme dialects). The language itself is unlikely to get used much for “real world” programming when you’re done with the books, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth every minute you invest in learning it and learning the concepts in these books.

          I already did as I recommend above with Perl. I started on Logo, as I describe, but set it aside to work with Ruby for a while, so I’m right now in the middle of what I’m suggesting for Ruby. I’m going to get back to Logo later on this year, probably right after I spend some time with Objective Caml (aka OCaml) — which will probably be more challenging to learn, if only because there isn’t as much of it out there as Perl and Ruby, and the documentation has huge holes in it.

        • #2520490

          I gotta stop asking question, I have reading for months now

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to I’ll check out the suspend info

          ah, who am I kidding, I won’t stop asking questions that easy. I’ll be visiting SOB frequently like though won’t be one of the “new visitors spouting gpl”.

          I’ve been through Turing, Basic, VB, VC++ and I’m still a newbie; I can accept that. When your at the bottom, there’s so much room to grow.

          Say, is that the same Logo that school kids play with on the old Icon computers?

        • #2520464

          Basically, yeah . . .

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to I’ll check out the suspend info

          That was just another implementation of the Logo language. I’ve never found an implementation I liked as much as UCBLogo, though.

        • #2518160

          I’m a big fan of DSL for old machines

          by jmgarvin ·

          In reply to an old laptop example

          Not only is it small (50mb), but it’s pretty feature rich and works pretty well with most hardware (although I had a bear of a time getting ndiswrapper to work properly).

          Check it out:
          http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

        • #2519870

          DSL is damn supper great on a usb also

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to I’m a big fan of DSL for old machines

          I love that the distro is built to both boot native, boot from windows or boot inside an included emulator. And it runs with barely any footprint.

          Mind you, it’s also how I discovered that non of my current machine BIOS allow boot from USB.

      • #2519440

        a few url incase they where missed somehow

        by neon samurai ·

        In reply to Linux Mint?

        • #2519394

          Thank You!

          by w2ktechman ·

          In reply to a few url incase they where missed somehow

          more options to choose from.
          But this one is more multimedia based, so it would be great for x-Windows users.
          Hmmm. Now I guess I need to try it out as well…

      • #2593807

        I’ve tried Linux Mint and 15 other Linux distros

        by silkymon05 ·

        In reply to Linux Mint?

        To be honest. I’m not really happy with any Linux distro or Win XP/Vista. There’s always a problem with each of these OS’s. PCLinuxOS TR1 to TR4 seems better than the PCLinuxOS Final. I never can get 1280x1024x75Hz for some reason with PCLinuxOS. I have an ATI 8X AGP video card with 256MB memory on the card. AMD64 processor with 1GB of RAM. I’m still in search of the almost perfect OS. Vista loads too many un-needed services and some older applications won’t even install. As I can remember, Linux Mint is OK, but always seems to be in the beta or RC stages. This maybe one that won’t shutdown properly on my pc unless I modify a file in the grub folder. Always something with Linux…

        • #2593710

          Re the graphics, you may need the latest driver or

          by deadly ernest ·

          In reply to I’ve tried Linux Mint and 15 other Linux distros

          to adjust the settings for the display settings in the relevant config file.

        • #2595097

          re: “Always something with Linux…”

          by absolutely ·

          In reply to I’ve tried Linux Mint and 15 other Linux distros

          If you’ll excuse the assumption, isn’t it really always something with modern computers? And doesn’t the possibility of editing a shell script beat the hell out of running an InstallShield Wizard & hoping “they” got it right?

          🙂

          PS I have the same ongoing hassle with ATI video cards, which I foolishly bought as a Windows user. Even with that added difficulty, I’m not going back to Microsoft.

    • #2525592

      Ubuntu no Automount or Sata recognition on Dell e520

      by saved2serve ·

      In reply to Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

      I had Ubuntu installed and it recognized most of my hardware on my old pc, but it would not automount my other 2 Fat32 drives, and running scripts i was given did not do it. Knoppix did however did auto mount them,as did other Linux distros i tried.

      I recently tried the latest Ubuntu Live cd on this new Dell e520 but it will not recognize the Sata drives (2), but i cannot even install XP on that pc – on either drive (error 0x00…). As ftp nor fax nor recording thru my sound card (Sigmatel) works with this PC and Vista Basic, i pray i can get a Linux distro to do such, as well as allow me to copy/change my files on the Windows partition, which i have not yet found any Linux could do.

      • #2525559

        try SimplyMEPIS 6 or later

        by deadly ernest ·

        In reply to Ubuntu no Automount or Sata recognition on Dell e520

        I’ve used SimplyMEPIS 6 for some time to transfer files to and from a Windows drive. One thing though, due to the way Windows manages user information, you may have to open the drive using ‘File Manager – Super User Mode’ to access the drive properly. This is because Windows won’t list it as being a drive or folders available to your normal user. You can also use this mode to change the properties section of the folders and files to allow any user to have full rights to them.

      • #2525521

        another option

        by apotheon ·

        In reply to Ubuntu no Automount or Sata recognition on Dell e520

        You could always try [url=http://freebsd.org][b]FreeBSD[/b][/url] instead of Linux. I’ve had better luck with hardware support using FreeBSD than I have using Linux distributions.

    • #2525544

      Big Fan Also But…

      by jackofalltech ·

      In reply to Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

      I’ve been using Ubuntu for about three weeks now (in a multi-boot environment) and I’ve seen the true ‘WOW’ factor. When I built my new PC (AMD 64 FX2 5200) about six months ago, It took about an hour to install XP with all the drivers and remove all the crap. It took TEN MINUTES from power on to first login as a user! Ten minutes and EVERYTHING worked!!

      The only reason I still keep Windows around is my rather large investment in games and development tools. Does anyone have a solution for this?

      Ralph

      • #2525520

        It depends on your needs.

        by apotheon ·

        In reply to Big Fan Also But…

        The solution depends on your needs.

        Some games work well with Wine on Linux and FreeBSD — I’ve gotten World of Warcraft working with Wine, and I’m going to try it out on FreeBSD in the near future as well. It took a fair bit of configuration trauma to get WoW working with Wine, but it was worth it: the Linux-based WoW install outperformed the MS Windows-based install on the same machine (it was someone else’s system set up as a dual-boot MS Windows and Debian GNU/Linux system).

        Since saying “development tools” without any context doesn’t really tell me anything at all about your specific development needs, and developers have far wider-ranging needs than gamers, it’s difficult for me to answer your question about development tools. What exactly do you need solved?

      • #2525484

        Most Windows based applications and games

        by deadly ernest ·

        In reply to Big Fan Also But…

        will work in WINE (www.winehq.com) or Cedega (www.transgaming.com) or Crossover (www.codeweavers.com) or one of several other Windows emulator programs.

        Cedega is aimed specifically at the gaming market while Crossover is aimed at the commrecial environment – both of these are comemrcial packages while WINE is a freebie.

    • #2582383

      Hi from mungus

      by mungus2 ·

      In reply to Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

      Hi I am using Ubuntu on a duel boot windows machine and think its great only prob I had was having to put a nic in wired to the router to get the net as I could not get it to pick up the wirelass conection and no driver for my printer out there but its getting real close to my dumping windows

    • #2622485

      Did she wach any DVD movies?

      by oktet ·

      In reply to Ubuntu vs. Everyone else

      Oh, I was just wondering if your girlfriend watched any DVD movies with Ubuntu.

      I also have Ubuntu alongside Windows XP 32 and totally agree with its ease of use, especially being a newbie in the field of Linux.

      However, with Kubuntu 7.0.4 it is a totally different story, even though that is suppose to be a newer distro of Ubuntu. I still have to figure out how to play DVD’s on Kubuntu 7.0.4.

      Nevertheless, I am multi booting, so I will switch back to Kubuntu when I have some time.

      • #2622607

        Legal issues involved here

        by deadly ernest ·

        In reply to Did she wach any DVD movies?

        Most Linux systems need extra codics to run proprietary movies, this is due to the security laws etc as part of DRM and that lot.

        the Unbuntu web site should have some directions about how you get these codices – if not just check the Kaffeine web site, etc.

        • #2620739

          codecs

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Legal issues involved here

          Dealing with the need for media codecs is annoying with most Linux systems, to say the least. As you point out, it’s mostly a legal problem. Luckily, it’s much easier in my experience to get things running for multimedia on FreeBSD than on (most) Linux distributions — just install the win32-codecs port, and you’re good.

        • #2620582

          That solves the problem for most Linux distros

          by deadly ernest ·

          In reply to codecs

          in some cases it’s easier to import than others, that’s all.

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